Kevin Askeland: Enterprise girls making bid to join list of top basketball teams

The Enterprise Hornets entered the Cal-Hi Sports Division III girls basketball state rankings last week at No. 9, making them the only team in the Northern Section to find a spot in the website's state rankings for boys or girls basketball.

The Hornets are off to a tremendous start at 22-1 with a 52-48 loss to Montgomery of Santa Rosa marring an otherwise spotless record.

While league and section championships still need to be won for Enterprise to be included in the exclusive group of greatest girls basketball teams in Northern Section history, the Hornets are steadily making their case. Pleasant Valley, which lost by eight in one of its meetings with Enterprise, is the only Northern Section team to come within double figures of beating the Hornets.

So where will Enterprise land among the greatest teams in section history? That remains to be seen, but here's a short list of candidates with which the Hornets will have to contend.

1. Pleasant Valley, 1985 — Under coach Tom Campbell, the Vikings went 26-0 and won a Division II state championship one year after falling in the state title game. Those 26 wins were the beginning of a 52-game win streak, the longest in Northern Section history. The 1985 Vikings are the only Northern Section team to ever go undefeated and win a state championship.

2. Red Bluff, 1987 — How deep were the Spartans in 1987? Here's how deep. Angie Weir, arguably one of the top five players in Northern Section history (1,528 career points) was injured in the days leading up to the state championship game against Valley Christian of Cerritos. Did the injury keep Red Bluff (29-2) from winning? Not a chance. Kathy Long took over the scoring leadership role for the Spartans and Red Bluff cruised to a 69-57 win.

3. Modoc, 1998 — Although a Division V school, the Braves were easily the best team in the section in 1998 regardless of classification. The Braves (29-1) rolled to the section championship and defeated Mission Prep of San Luis Obispo 67-53. Kayte Christensen, the center on that team, went on to a career in the WNBA.

4. Anderson, 1983 — The first Northern Section team to win a state championship, the Cubs, behind all-time great Cathi Hall, beat La Reina of Thousand Oaks 42-39 in the Division II state finals. Anderson finished 26-1 overall.

5. Willows, 1988 — The Honkers (26-4) make the list because they are the only team to win back-to-back state championships. With no superstars on the team, the Honkers played sound, fundamental basketball under coach Richard Hull, the section's all-time winningest girls basketball coach. Their 82-58 win over Chowchilla ranked as the most lopsided win in a Division IV state championship game for 17 years.

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Katie Nunnelley of Anderson is on pace to break the school's single-season scoring record, although the Cubs may need to play a couple of playoff games in order for her to set the mark.

With 467 points following last week's 73-58 win over Lassen, Nunnelley came within 76 points of the record. The record is 543 points by Aimee Conner in 1988.

Nunnelley has twice hit over 30 points in a game this season, including 36 in a win over Corning on Jan. 22. Anderson has not yet entered statistics from its win Tuesday against Central Valley.

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The Northern Section basketball playoff points came out this week and if nothing else it shows what a dogfight there's going to be for the Shasta Cascade League boys basketball championship.

Mount Shasta is ranked No. 1, Weed is No. 2 and Modoc is No. 4. Trinity comes in at No. 9 and a fifth SCL team, Fall River, is No. 11. Rarely does a league have more than one team in the top four in the rankings, let alone three.

The interesting thing is that both Trinity and Fall River might not qualify for the postseason. Although their overall resume is good enough to get them ranked among the top 11 teams, the league bylaws state that a team must be over .500 in league, division or overall in order to qualify. It's possible that Trinity and Fall River could fall short in all three categories.